New hires at the Fulton Center home in Gloversville make lower wages now that the Centers for Specialty Care owns it.

Union official rips Valley View bidder

By BY CHRIS MCKENNA

Times Herald-Record

August 09, 2012 - 2:00 AM

GOSHEN — Less than a month ago, officials from one of the businesses seeking to buy the Valley View Center for Nursing Care and Rehabilitation assured Orange County lawmakers that their recent takeover of a county-owned nursing home upstate had gone smoothly and that the "vast majority" of workers had kept their jobs.

But on Wednesday, the same legislative panel that questioned the Centers for Specialty Care's team in July heard a conflicting account from the union representing employees at the former Fulton County Residential Health Care Facility in Gloversville, about 50 miles northwest of Albany.

The good news for Fulton County workers was that 170 of the facility's roughly 210 employees kept their jobs and pay rates when the Bronx-based Centers for Specialty Care began running the nursing home on April 1, said Robert Compani, director of the Civil Service Employees Association's private-sector division.

Months later, all but 40 of those former county employees have left. Staffing remains at 170, a nearly 20 percent drop.

The bad news for workers was that contributions to their state pensions had ended, replaced by a 401(k) plan, and the cost of health insurance more than doubled.

Those who chose to take health coverage — most didn't — had to pay $980 a month for a family plan, or about 80 percent of the cost, and start making copays for all medical visits, Compani said.

"It had a serious impact on them," he said.

Big player in privatization

The Centers for Specialty Care has become a dominant player in New York as counties have weighed privatizing their nursing homes to save money. The company has bid on both Orange and Ulster counties' facilities and is negotiating to buy county-owned nursing homes in Essex and Washington counties.

On July 11, Bruce Gendron, a regional administrator for the company, told Orange County lawmakers that a contract with Fulton workers was negotiated within 30 days and that the transition to new ownership was "remarkably smooth."

Compani, whose private-sector division now represents the facility's workers, testified Wednesday that the negotiations actually took less than two weeks and happened so quickly only because formal talks couldn't start until after the takeover. That meant employees initially accepted jobs without knowing the terms.

"A lot of it is just because we were put under a tremendous amount of pressure," Compani said when asked about the swift negotiations.

Lower pay for new workers

While wages for holdover workers stayed the same, starting pay for new employees dropped.

Newly hired licensed practical nurses are paid $14 an hour as opposed to $16.25 when the home was publicly owned, and the hourly rate for a nursing assistant dipped to $9.50 from more than $10. Starting pay for all other workers is $8.50 an hour.

What has made the exodus of former county employees so striking is that few jobs are available in the economically distressed area, Compani said.

"They've just found it unbearable to the point where they just quit — in a city with no jobs," he said.